Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Monster Stingray Caught in Thailand

A giant stingray billed as the largest freshwater fish ever caught by rod and reel snagged the line of a freshwater biologist in Thailand, according to news reports Tuesday.Ian Welch was visiting from Britain to assist a catch-and-release tagging program to track the endangered stingrays. The fish nearly pulled him into the sea he said"It dragged me across the boat and would have pulled me in had my colleague not grabbed my trousers," said WelchThe female stingray weighed 772 pounds and measured seven feet long, the Guardian reported. The tail measured 10 feet long."As soon as we saw it there was just silence because everyone was just in awe of this thing," Welch told the Telegraph. "That line from the film Jaws came to mind about needing a bigger boat because we had to get it to the shore to tag it."It took 13 people to lift the creature so it could be tagged. It was described as being the size of a garden shed.The stingray's poisonous barbed tail was wrapped in cloth as the animal was tagged. Welch gave her a kiss before she swam back out to the wild.